Mind, body & Spirit

Category Archives: hope

Flowers give us the beauty of color and enjoyment of smell as we inhale their wonderful fragrance. I have been astounded by the colors that are possible by just adding colored water to a white plant. This bouquet is the essence of different colors. I took this close up to discuss perspective. The entire bouquet is made up of single flowers each unique it it’s own design. People are unique not only in design, likeness, abilities, mood, personality, health and illness but in our perspectives. As in the flower people do not last forever. We bloom and flourish for a while and then we begin to fade.

Having beauty is subjective just as having and illness is a subjective experience. Experiencing disease is like experiencing a plant that gets blight except humans can process the suffering from an illness and define the symptoms they are experiencing. It is the degree of the symptoms impact on the person as the medical community is not able to objectively define the boundaries between normal variant or the cause of the symptoms. Humans are more than their symptoms and experiences just as the flower is more than the colors, smells and life cycle.

Since there are seasons to life and change is inevitable,we must learn to keep our perspectives in the present. Worry ages us fast and just living in the moment gives us time to shine for what this moment is. Worry brings our moods down and depression can be the result. Much like the flower experiencing low water it can hasten our decline if not treated as important. We are all important and must learn to reach for help at times to keep our perspectives in line. Know that asking for help is not a weakness it is like asking for water to a flower. In order to bloom and thrive we must reach out for help.

Depression is an illness that we as humans fail to recognize as important. We downplay the facts and shy away from the diagnosis due to the stigma of “what will people think of me.” There are medical illnesses that can cause depression and by treating them many times the depression lifts. Just like the wilting flower lifts after we give it water. Since we can’t take the brain from the human, we must consider depression as a symptom that is treatable. Having this perspective on depression and other mental illnesses helps the medical community to reach people, whose perspective is off, to obtain treatment. My perspective is to give others hope that people care about them, want to encourage them to stick with treatment and raise them up at each change that is reached.

Like the flowers, enjoying life and others who bring color to our world is only through education, acceptance and caring.